Oh dear, here we go again….
Personally, I don’t think there should have been any kind of protest, as I don’t think there should have been any kind of parade. These soldiers voluntarily signed up, and have been doing their jobs. Granted, there have been acts of outstanding bravery, I’m sure, and indivuduals involved should be commended for this. But to have a public parade for the returning ‘heroes’ is, in my opinion, ill-judged and in very poor taste. Hundreds of thousands of peoplehave died in Iraq and Afghanistan etc, and bugger all has been achieved in Iraq, bar the removal of the regime which stood in the way of Western control of oil resources. Iraq, a previously progressive and advanced nation, has been reduced to a lawless war zone, where far more innocent people are suffering than ever did under Saddam.
These soldiers are government employees, nothing else. They aren’t protecting us from imminent invasion, or terrorism, or any thing. So why do they ‘deserve’ a parade? ‘Oh, because they have a very dangerous job to do, protecting Iraqi civilians from insurgents’, or whatever. Well, no-one forced them to sign up and go to Iraq, so they shoon’t therefore expect a parade.
I reckon these parades are simply a way for the government to win back a bit of support, and to also polarise public opinion in some way; ‘We’ll have a parade, and anyone speaking out against it will be seen as unpatriotic, and the Anti-War movement will lose credibility’…
Yes, that’s the truth. If you look hard enough, you might see it too.
If the armed forces want to hold any ceremonies, then perhaps they should have them in private, in military establishments, with only the families of service personnel attending. Then, they could give out their medals and stuff, without the risk of anyone ‘disrespecting’ the ‘heroes’.
And the ‘Muslim’ protestors are simply misguided, bigotted hateful idiots, not much more than the BNP are.
They represent a faith which preaches peace and tolerance, no more than the extreme-right do.